You can typically buy Thailand travel insurance up to 24 hours before your trip. There are three main types of Thailand travel insurance: Foreign medical coverage and Trip cancellation. Lost luggage, kidnapping and pretty much anything else that can go wrong. If you’re concerned about getting hurt abroad or canceling an expensive trip, Thailand travel insurance may be worth it. Chances are, you probably have some form of coverage with your existing insurance providers or… [Read More]

Bangkok, Where Pleasure is King The mood of Bangkok is very special in Southeast Asia. Jakarta, the capital of Indonesia, for example, is a whirlpool of frustration; a capital in orbit around anti-colonial slogans. Singapore is energetic, engaged in a puritanical revolution; Kuala Lumpur, in Malaya, is easygoing, a capital with Arabian Nights architecture, where the work manages to get done every day. Bangkok, though, is a rejuvenating tonic; the people seem to have found… [Read More]

Want 16 Tips for Buying Cheap Meds In Thailand? I’m buying cheap meds in Thailand but my needs are pretty lightweight, so I turned to a friend, Greg Miller, who was injured when deep sea diving for the US Navy, and I asked him about his wonderful collection of meds and if they are really as cheap as people claim. In response, he wrote me this: When I moved to Thailand from the US I found that… [Read More]

I’m Making a Thai Will after my first client died suddenly. He had not made a Thai will and I was called on to help sort out a remarkably complicated situation that involved a girlfriend (whom everyone, including the deceased client and his relatives, wanted to receive a lion’s share of the estate), three banks, the Social Security Administration, a property lease and a property sale-in-progress, three reluctant insurance companies … and no Thai will. Happily,… [Read More]

I’ve Been Defending America in Thailand and it’s an uphill job. Since I moved to Thailand I’ve been impressed at the wide variety of nationalities I’ve met. Chiang Mai has a remarkably diverse cross section of the world’s peoples coming through it all the time. I’ve met Slovenes and Ukrainian, done yoga with Vladimir Putin’s TV producer (she says he’s “very obedient and has a good sense of humor”) and Eritreans and Sardinians and Kosovans. It’s been great!… [Read More]

What are Thailand Employment Salaries? Wages in Thailand seem low to Western visitors, but Thailand’s official unemployment rate, 0.56 percent, is among the lowest in the world, (it’s 9.4 percent in India and 6 percent in the Philippines. for example). The jobless rate in Thailand has been under 1 percent since 2011. How did it get so low? Bank of Thailand spokesman Chirathep Senivongs Na Ayudhya explains: ”Our unemployment rate has been low not because of a… [Read More]

Wholeheartedly, day and night, a disciple of the Buddha should recite and meditate on the eight realizations discovered by the mahasattvas, the great beings. THE FIRST REALIZATION is the awareness that the world is impermanent. All political regimes are subject to fall; all things composed of the four elements (1) are empty and contain the seeds of suffering. Human beings are composed of five skandhas, aggregates, (2) and are without a separate self. They are always… [Read More]

South Korea’s Seoul Incheon Airport, in the Heart of Asia Incheon, Seoul’s Asian international airport is known to luggage taggers as ICN. I’ve been flying through Incheon regularly but only recently – thanks to a 12-hour overlay – did I notice how Korean it is! What I love about Koreans is that they’re extreme about everything. They don’t do anything by halves. They’re not slackers. There’s no Korean equivalent for ‘whatever”. When you see a KAL stewardess you’ll… [Read More]

Thai Tiger Mauls Australian? Duh! An Australian is recovering in a Thai hospital after being mauled by a young male tiger in a special tourist enclosure at an animal park on the resort island of Phuket. Paul Goudie, from Werribee, near Melbourne, was attacked at the enclosure this week at the Tiger Kingdom tourist show after being given controlled access to a group of young tigers. Goudie, 49, suffered serious bites to his left leg… [Read More]

Doi Saket Hot Springs, Thailand, Video This is Doi Saket hot springs, my favorite hot springs in all of Thailand. I love it because it’s owned by the (tiny, picturesque) village of Doi Saket and they operate it cooperatively. It’s very rural in its setting and appearance, and the women who do all the work are local farm wives who’ve lived and grown up together there. I soak in the springs for 20 minutes before… [Read More]

Greatest Thai Buddhist Sutras: Karma. The Culakammavibhanga Sutra You want: long life, health, beauty, power, riches, high birth, wisdom? Or even some of these things? They do not appear by chance. It is not someone’s luck that they are healthy, or another’s lack of it that he is stupid. Though it may not be clear to us now, all such inequalities among human beings (and all sorts of beings) come about because of the kamma they… [Read More]

What to Bring to Thailand When You Move Bed Linens. Thai linens are pretty awful, for some reason. The towels are bearable, but the sheets are rough and uncomfortable. Even though China makes most of the world’s linens, there are no decent sheets imported to Thailand. So bring your own sheets and remember that Thai Mattress sizes are different from ours: US Standard King — 76 x 80 inches = 198 x 203 cm. Thailand King — 72 x 78 inches… [Read More]

Why is Literacy in Thailand so Poor? Thailand’s Office of Basic Education Commission (OBEC) recently completed a literacy test of Thailand’s third-grade children and found that out of 600,000 3rd grade students, 35,000 – 5 percent – can’t read or write at all. 200,000 others – 1 in every 3 – struggle to read or write well. There are several explanations for this sorry state of affairs. The first reason that literacy in Thailand so poor is… [Read More]

Pythons in Thai Toilets are Uncommon, But… Thailand is still an exotic, exciting place, as this story about a pythons in Thai toilets, demonstrates. A woman was almost killed by a python that came out of her toilet last night. The woman, Rampeung Onlamai, 57, had just finished her shower at her home north of Bangkok when a python emerged from her toilet and attempted to drag her down the drain. The snake sunk its fangs… [Read More]

Is There Really Dengue Fever in Thailand? Though dengue fever is endemic in Thailand, you don’t have to get it. And you don’t have to suffer years of after-effects if you do. Three years ago we had a dengue epidemic and several friends went down with it. Dengue was new to me and I was appalled by the severity of their symptoms (one of them is still suffering from the after-effects). I was concerned for two reasons: they… [Read More]